Marco Rose, RB Leipzig ecstatic with Champions League-confirming takedown of Bayern Munich

Tip your hats to the visitors. RB Leipzig came in to the Allianz Arena unfazed and delivered a stunning eleventh-hour blow to Bayern Munich’s Bundesliga title hopes.

“Bayern weren’t much better than us. We know how we won,” said Leipzig head coach Marco Rose. “We felt at half-time that we could do a number of things better. We lost balls too easily in the first half, were lax with the ball. We wanted to be more compact, add more intensity, but also knew there was something in this for us today. With the counter for the equaliser, belief grew that we had them, and we took that. It was a great performance from us.”

“The second half was much better,” agreed captain Willi Orban. “We were braver, had more pressure on the ball, lots of turnovers and then scored good goals. We knew we had to change something at the break – full-backs higher up the field and defending the attacking midfielder higher. That meant we won the ball and then finished the attacks. We obviously had some luck with the penalties, but when you look at the second half, we deserved to win.”

Finally, it was none other than incoming Bayern midfielder Konrad Laimer who delivered the dagger to the heart — the equalizer that seemed to crash the house of cards down. Et tu, Konrad?

“We didn’t start the game well. You saw how well Bayern can play when there’s something on the line for them,” Laimer said. “But we then got our chances. We said at half-time that we had to stay calm on the ball. We got chances, took them and definitely aren’t undeserved winners. We really grew up in the second half, matured and allowed them very little.”

This time next year, hopefully, Laimer will be delivering vintage performances with a different “we” after the match.